Our region is blessed with a wonderful heritage, people and culture, great infrastructure and connectivity, some of the world’s best businesses and a location at the apex of the North Island’s “golden triangle”.

Of all the places in New Zealand, there is none better positioned to grow even more strongly in the future than the mighty Waikato. But it won’t happen unless we have a plan and we work together to execute it.

Waikato Means Business is the name of our region’s 20-year economic development strategy, released in February 2014 and created with input from civic, business and Māori leaders.

The Waikato region’s economic performance has been solid in recent years and on most measures we perform close to the New Zealand average. But we have the opportunity to improve so we lead the way, not follow other regions.

There’s weight behind this process – the strategy was initiated by the Waikato Mayoral Forum, which brings together the region’s mayors and the regional council chair.

The strategy sets two 20-year focus goals of:

Increasing median household incomes to above the New Zealand average

Increasing annual value added per capita growth to 2.8 per cent so that Waikato is in the upper third of regions for economic performance.